Learning from King’s Last Campaign
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Learning from King’s Last Campaign

Jessicah Pierre   As we celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., it’s natural to remember his courageous advocacy for racial equity. But before he was assassinated, King had also begun to broaden his efforts to unify people around economic justice.   That’s worth remembering today.   In December 1967, King, the Southern Christian…

Supreme Court’s (New) Reservations Judgment and Its Discontents
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Supreme Court’s (New) Reservations Judgment and Its Discontents

Gautam Bhatia   On 7 February, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court handed down a judgment holding that Article 16(4) of the Constitution is only an enabling provision, and does not confer a “right” to reservations. The context of the case was as follows: in 2012, the government of Uttarakhand decided to fill up…

An Open Letter to the Citizens of India
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An Open Letter to the Citizens of India

Constitutional Conduct Group   A group of 106 former senior bureaucrats with the government of India have organised themselves as the Constitutional Conduct Group. Most of them were IAS, and include IPS, IRS, IFS officials. They include top former Secretaries, DGPs and even RAW officials. The signatories include former National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon; former…

It’s Time to Tell Amit Shah and Narendra Modi, ‘Hum Sab JNU’
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It’s Time to Tell Amit Shah and Narendra Modi, ‘Hum Sab JNU’

Siddharth Varadarajan   Let us set aside the anger and revulsion, disbelief, helplessness and perhaps even fear that many of you would have felt over Sunday night’s events at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and let us also postpone the question of who those masked thugs were that beat up students and faculty, and destroyed public property…

Shaheen Bagh Heralds a New Year With Songs of Azaadi
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Shaheen Bagh Heralds a New Year With Songs of Azaadi

Samrat Chakrabarti   It began simply and without fuss. On the night that Jamia Millia Islamia was attacked, ten women walked out of their homes and onto the road next door that connects Delhi with Uttar Pradesh with a resolve not to move, come what may.   These women who describe themselves as jahil and…

Unite – To Fight the Nefarious Schemes of the Modi-Shah Government 
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Unite – To Fight the Nefarious Schemes of the Modi-Shah Government 

G.G. Parekh, Neeraj Jain Being a citizen is the supremest identity that a person has; in contrast, being declared non-citizen (or a foreigner) effectively means the person becomes stateless, which condemns him/her to civil death—a person becomes deprived of almost all his civil rights. The Indian Constitution granted citizenship by birth to all people; after…

“Don’t Betray the Constitution. Withdraw CAB 2019″
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“Don’t Betray the Constitution. Withdraw CAB 2019″

More than 600 artists, writers, academicians, ex-judges and former bureaucrats have released an open letter asking the Narendra Modi-led government to withdraw the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, terming it is “discriminatory, divisive”, and violative of the secular principles enshrined in the Constitution. Here is the full text of the letter.   Since independence, Indian citizenship has…